Corsair has just unveiled the new Corsair HS35 V2 and Corsair HS35 V2 Surround, improving upon and expanding the company’s previous HS35 budget gaming headset offering. The new design includes a new headband and tweaked earcup shape while the Surround version is the first of the company’s lowest-tier HS35 range to include virtual surround sound.
While it’s certainly too early to say if these will be contenders for a place on our best gaming headset guide, these improvements should make for more comfortable headsets compared to the quite basic original Corsair HS35 design.
Looking more closely at the HS35 V2, its design is quite different to the previous version. Where the original HS35 had oval-shaped earcups and a headband with telescoping ends and a padded section on the underside, the new version has more contoured earcups and the headband has shifted to a fixed outer headband with an adjustable elastic headband on the inside for tweaking the fit of the headset.
While it’s not an absolute guarantee, this style of headband does tend to offer a more comfortable feel for the top of your head, all other things being equal. That’s because the elastic naturally spreads out the weight of the headset much more evenly than a fixed headband with foam padding. The new design is fractionally lighter than the old one too – both versions are quite light – at 213g/0.47lb compared to 217g/0.48lb.
Otherwise, the core features of the headset are the same with it offering an analog 3.5mm stereo input so that it can plug into the headset output of your PC, as well as some console controllers such as Sony’s DualSense controller.
It also retains the same 50mm drivers as the original HS35, with Corsair describing them as producing a “powerfully wide range of sound, enabling you to detect new details within your games.” However, the company hasn’t released frequency range or sensitivity stats for the new headset’s drivers.
The same is true of the new microphone, is described as omni-directional but with noise cancelling. Ordinarily, omni-directional means it will pick up noise from all around, so it won’t naturally block external noise, so it’s not quite clear what Corsair means here.
Some other downsides to note are that both the microphone and main cable aren’t detachable at all so this won’t be an ideal headset for use away from a PC, plus a broken cable will mean a broken headset. But, that’s why it’s a budget design.
The HS35 V2 is available now in black, blue, and red colors with the HS35 V2 price being $49.99.
Moving onto the HS35 V2 Surround, this has the same core features and design as the analog version but comes with a USB adapter that the main headset plugs into. This then provides 7.1 virtual surround sound that’s controllable via Corsair’s iCUE app. The HS35 V2 Surround is also available now priced at $59.99.
While we’ve yet to review these new headsets – review samples are on their way – you can find our thoughts on another of Corsair’s affordable surround sound headsets with our Corsair HS65 Surround review, which is a a headset that adds a more premium design and foldaway microphone.